Sunday, November 27, 2016

We all know that advertising has had to constantly evolve in order to stay ahead of various methods of viral advertising. It has gotten to the point where it is often hard to tell the difference between real content and an ad. Skyrim is apparently no different. While exiting my home in Lakeview, I noticed a courier approaching. No doubt he had a letter for me. Perhaps it was the telegram from Ed McMahon that I had been waiting for. Before he could deliver it, the giant that has been hanging around my property (that's what I get for building out in the boonies) chased him down and beat him to death. While I walked back to my home, another courier appeared and gave me the intended message: An advertisement for the opening of a museum in Dawnstar. Great. Another viral ad.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Clovis is a very ardent, unapologetic Trump supporter. So, it's really no wonder that, when a credit card scammer with a foreign accent called him recently, Clovis felt inclined to mention that Tump's campaign promises related to immigration. The mere mention of Trump sent the caller into a frenzy, shouting insults and making threats. The scammer then hung up the phone in order to retreat to his safe space.

Friday, November 18, 2016

I've been playing through the Nuka-World DLC for Fallout 4 and found myself in the World Of Refreshment. As I approached the computer in the Nuka-Cola bottling plant, I got flanked by three Assaultrons. I was able to cripple one by shooting one of its legs off. It fell to the floor, so I hacked it, de-activated it and fell back to deal with the other two. Once that was done, I went outside, explored a bit, came back in and then got ambushed by Nukalurks. I thought it would be a good idea to lure the Nukalurks to the disabled Assaultron and have it self-destruct. But, when I got there, the Assaultron was standing up leaning against the wall rather than laying on the floor. I activated it and incited it to attack, and it acted as if its leg were still attached even though it clearly wasn't. Check out the video below:

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

It seems that 2016 just keeps on giving. First the Cubs win the World Series, then Trump defies all polls and expectations and wins the office of President of the United States. Not only that, but the Republicans have secured a majority in both the House and Senate which means the Supreme Court is due to shift conservative. Surely, the giant meteor is only weeks away from bearing down on us.

Over the coming months/years the Democratic National Committee will no doubt be working on its post-mortum in the hopes of identifying the causes for Hillary Clinton's stunning loss. One of the excuses that is already spinning out of the minds of some of the more radical pundits is that people voted against Hillary Clinton because she is a woman. That's right, people are actually claiming that that nation was not yet ready to have a woman in the Oval Office so they voted against Hillary simply because of her gender. This would have been the fate of any woman on the ticket, they claim. Bullshit, I say.

While I concede that there may be a small yet vocal minority who voted against Hillary because of her gender, her being a woman was not a factor for the vast majority of people who voted against her. The fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote is a clear indication that enough people were willing to elect a female President. The problem resides with the candidate herself, not with her gender. During an election cycle where many people feel disaffected and were on the lookout for a political outsider, the Democratic Party threw its own outsider under the bus in favor of the biggest insider they had. A candidate who began her political life by carpetbagging her way to a New York Senate seat. A candidate who consistently lied about trivial matters like being under sniper fire in Bosnia or her daughter jogging through the World Trade Center on 9/11 just so she could seem more "presidential". A candidate who, despite already knowing the potential consequences (see George W. Bush and 22 million missing emails), set up a private email server and conducted political business on it. A candidate who claimed that she would hold Wall Street to the fire, yet refused to release the transcripts of the speeches she was paid to make for them. A candidate who rewarded Debbie Wasserman Schultz, disgraced DNC chair, with a position on the campaign trail. And, yet instead of addressing these issues head-on, Clinton decided to ignore them and focus instead on Trump's personal negatives. The Clinton camp tried to have you believe that voting for Trump was an endorsement of all the terrible things he said which is like saying that Germans who had grievances with the Treaty of Versailles supported the Nazi party. It's possible to support some things about a candidate but not others. And, yet the Trump campaign never tried to equate a vote for Clinton with endorsement of her corruption. Is it any wonder that, when given the choice between a shit-talking celebrity blowhard and a corrupt political insider, a significant amount of people decided to go with the blowhard?

That's not to say that the Trump campaign bungled its way to victory. They didn't. They won because they played to the disaffected white-collar Americans whereas Clinton played to the disaffected minorities. This allowed Trump to pick up the key swing states, especially those in the so-called Rust Belt (It didn't help that Hillary didn't set foot in Wisconsin during the general election and blindly believed that Bernie supporters who delivered the state to him in the primaries would just fall in line) Clinton played identity politics in an environment that was more concerned about class politics.

In the end, exit polls suggest that neither side were very enthusiastic about their candidates. They distrusted both of them, yet somehow managed to hold their noses and cast their votes for what they saw as the least of two evils. People who voted for Trump hated his stance on women and minorities. People who voted for Hillary hated her scandal-plagued political career. The result was a victory for Trump. Hillary lost not because she's a woman, but because's she's Hillary.

Monday, November 7, 2016

It occurs to me that one of the disadvantages of Daylight Savings Time is that, when we turned our clocks back, it meant that we'd have to endure an extra hour of this year's election season. This year's Presidential campaign has been particularly nasty, so much so that it makes Grover Cleveland vs John G. Blaine look like a box social. Whatever happened to "Let the best man (person) win"? Whatever happened to "My worthy opponent...."?

While mulling over the Cubs' recent victory at the World Series, I was struck by something. Not once during the whole event did any player put down a player from the other side. There was no trash talk, just talk about strategy, playing hard and trusting in your teammates. Can you imagine what a Presidential campaign would be like if the candidates held themselves to this kind of standard?

Trump: "I'm happy to have gotten this far and I hope that I can bring the party to victory!"

Clinton: "I'm just going to give it my best shot, and, Lord willing, things will work out."

Trump: "I'm going to have to be ready to campaign, because you know she will."

Clinton: "My opponent is a great campaigner, and that means I have to be a better campaigner."

Trump: "I want to thank God. I want to thank the Lord God because It is really not up to me, it's up to him. And I want to thank the devil too because you know, that's why God's there. He's minding the fence making sure that guy never comes back. You know, if it weren't for the devil, God would probably gone insane, blow his brains out from boredom. Everybody likes to feel useful. Make-a-da world go around."

Clinton: "We gotta take 'em one state at a time."

Sure, it's not high on drama. And there isn't really any insight in what they'd be saying. But, given the highly toxic nature of the last few election cycles, I think most of us would be happy if we could go through one that was a little on the boring side.

Friday, November 4, 2016

A guy referring to himself as "Agent Skinner" called yesterday with yet another one of those "lower your interest rate" deals where they try to scam you into giving up your credit card information. I was actually surprised to find that this particular scammer wasn't Indian, rather, he was Jamaican. I've mentioned before that Jamaica is becoming a hotbed of call centers. It was only a matter of time before I pulled one.

Anyway, the guy seemed to get a bit annoyed when, after being asked for the expiration date of my credit card, I told him I'd wait for him to get a pen. When I finally let loose with my usual insult, he was very disappointed, as I was apparently the second person to mess with him that day. I asked him who could fall for this obvious scam, and he told me that he gets about 60 people a day. He hung up when I referred to him as "a piece of human garbage".

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Somewhere, deep within the depths of Hell, Satan is lacing up his ice skates. For the first time since 1908, the Chicago Cubs have won the World Series. This morning, my Facebook News Feed is filled with die-hard and fair-weather Cubs Fans celebrating the victory. Some are even saying that it's a moment that they'll tell their grandchildren about. I can just see how this conversation would go with mine, some 20 years from now:

"Grandpa, where were you when the Cubs won The World Series?"

"I was in bed with Grandma. I'm a White Sox fan!"

Still, 108 years is a long time to wait between pennants. It's pretty humbling to think of all the events that happened in the world in those years:

The Ottoman Empire fell

Women got the right to vote in the United States

The rise and fall of Communism

Five states were admitted to the union

Haley's Comet passed by. Twice.

Fourteen teams were added to Major League Baseball

Wrigley Field was built (The Cubs originally played at West Side Grounds).

Jack Brickhouse was born and died.

Harry Caray was born and died.

Thirty-three elements were identified on the Periodic Table

The White Sox won The World Series. Twice.

Anyway, good on you Cubs for finally getting around to winning the title and for throwing the shackles of "The Curse Of The Goat" off. I'm honestly happy for you and all of your fans. And maybe now I won't have to hear that damn "Go Cubs Go" song for a while.